The aerodynamic performance and flow characteristics of a multichannel nozzled Tesla turbine were investigated numerically with different nozzle and outlet geometries at different rotational speeds. Two kinds of nozzle geometries were proposed: one nozzle channel to one disc channel (named as one-to-one turbine) and one nozzle channel to several disc channels (named as one-to-many turbine). Simplified radial outlet and real axial outlet geometries of the Tesla turbines were adopted to research the influence of outlet geometries. The results show that compared with the one-to-many turbine, the isentropic efficiency of the one-to-one turbine is much higher; while the flow coefficient is much lower. In addition, in the middle disc channels (DC1 and DC2) of which two walls are rotating disc walls, the flow fields are almost the same, but different from that in the side channel (DC3) of which one wall is a rotating wall and the other one is a stationary casing wall. DC1 and DC2 generate more torque with less working fluid, thus the disc spacing distance of DC3 should be narrower than that of DC1 and DC2. Compared to the one-to-many turbine, the working fluid flowing through DC1 and DC2 of the one-to-one turbine is much less, and the flow path lines are much longer. The results of different turbine outlet geometries show that compared with the turbines with radial outlet, the isentropic efficiency of the one-to-many turbine with axial outlet is a little higher, while that of the one-to-one turbine with axial outlet is lower. This is due to the larger torque on the disc hole walls, despite a lot more total pressure loss in the exhaust vent of the one-to-many turbine. Therefore, the contribution of disc hole walls to torque cannot be neglected in numerical simulations.
A Tesla turbine makes use of a fluid’s viscous force to cause rotation of a set of closed spaced disks. In this paper, the theoretical analysis method proposed by Carey et al in 2010 was improved, and the design method has taken the pressure drop occurring in the rotor into consideration in order to approach its physics condition of flow. The sensitivity of the design parameters on the isentropic efficiency of Tesla turbines was investigated, and the results indicate that rotor tip Mach number is the most sensitive factor, followed in turn by the pressure ratio across the turbine, the specific heat ratio, the non-dimensional rotor radius ratio, the dimensionless inlet tangential velocity difference, and the modified Reynolds number. A typical Tesla turbine was designed and its flow characteristics were numerically simulated by 3-dimensional viscous governing equations. The results of numerical simulations show that the isentropic efficiency increases with the rotational speed and increasing turbine pressure ratio and as the nozzle number drops. The output power goes up with the rotational speed and increasing nozzle number, but decreases with increasing pressure ratio across the turbine. The highest isentropic efficiency 0.436 of the Tesla turbine supply with 2 nozzles is obtained with the pressure ratio 0.8 and the rotational speed 24,658r/min. Combining the influence of nozzle number on isentropic efficiency and output power, a Tesla turbine with two or four nozzles is suggested. Generally the results of numerical calculations show that they are in reasonably agreement with the results of design method, and are also consistent with the results of sensitivity analysis.
As a competitive small-scale turbomachinery option, Tesla turbines have wide potential in various fields, such as renewable energy generation systems and small power equipment. This paper investigates the influence of disc tip geometry, including its profile and relative height, on the aerodynamic performance and flow characteristics of one-to-one and one-to-many multichannel Tesla turbines. The results indicate that compared to the turbine with blunt tips, the isentropic efficiency of the one-to-one turbine with sharp tips has a little decrease, which is because the relative tangential velocity gradient near the rotational disc walls decreases a little and additional vortices are generated at the rotor inlet, while that of the one-to-many turbine with sharp tips increases significantly, resulting from an increase in the relative tangential velocity in the disc channels and a decrease in the low Mach number and vortex area; for instance the turbine efficiency for the former relatively decreases by 3.6% and that for the latter increases by 13.5% at 30,000 r/min. In addition, the isentropic efficiency of the one-to-many turbine with sharp tips goes up with increasing relative height due to increasing improvement of flow status, and its increment rate slows down. A circular or elliptic tip performs better with lower relative height and a triangular tip behaves better with higher relative height. To sum up, a blunt disc tip is recommended for the one-to-one turbine, and a sharp disc tip is for the one-to-many turbine. The relative height and tip profile of the one-to-many turbine should be determined according to their effects on turbine performance, manufacturing difficulty and mechanical deformation.
This paper aims at proposing a feasible method to determine an appropriate disc spacing distance in the design of Tesla turbines. Therefore, a typical Tesla turbine with seven different disc spacing distances was calculated numerically at different rotational speeds to investigate the influence of disc spacing distance on the aerodynamic performance and flow field of Tesla turbines and further to put forward the method. The results show that the isentropic efficiency of Tesla turbines peaks when the disc spacing distance gets its optimal value, and it decreases quickly as the disc spacing distance decreases from its optimal value. What’s more, the dimensionless parameter Ekman number is applied to determine an appropriate disc spacing distance in the design of Tesla turbines. There’s an optimal value of the Ekman number that Tesla turbines obtain its best performance, and it is influenced by the rotational speed. Meanwhile, the optimal value of the dimensionless rotor inlet tangential velocity difference which decides the rotational speed is also affected by the disc spacing distance. Thus, the determination of the optimal values of the dimensionless rotor inlet tangential velocity difference and the Ekman number is a cyclic iterative process to make them at their optimal values or in their optimal ranges respectively.
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